Kshama Solidarity promises more rallies to try to force the recall campaign to move forward more in time for a November vote when turnout will be highest
Supporters of recall-embattled City Councilmember Kshama Sawant say it is time to “put up or shut up.” The campaign’s two week zig-zag strategy to try to force a November vote on the recall has produced 2,047 signatures, enough when combined with nearly 10,000 previously collected signatures, they say, for the recall campaign “to immediately turn in their sum total signatures to King County Elections” before next week’s deadline to be part of the General Election ballot.
But the Recall Sawant campaign, empowered by elections rules that allow only the group demanding the recall to submit signatures to petition to put the vote to District 3 voters, is definitely not shutting up.
Will it put up?
“King County Elections gives us one chance to submit and verify our signatures, and with the agency reporting a 52% validation rate for ballot measures this cycle, we have a high standard to meet,” recall campaign manager Henry Bridger tells CHS.
“The Recall campaign will do their due diligence on behalf all voters in District 3 to insure we have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. When and how we go through that process will be based on our confidence in the number of valid signatures we collect – not the whims of Councilmember Sawant.”
CHS reported here on the April state Supreme Court decision allowing the recall to continue and the details of the charges brought against the longest serving city councilmember. Organizers have outlined multiple acts they say warranted recall including using city resources to promote a Tax Amazon initiative, allowing demonstrators inside City Hall during a protest last June, and marching to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s home address kept secret due to her past role as a federal prosecutor. A fourth charge of allowing Socialist Alternative to influence her office’s employment decisions was rejected by the state Supreme Court.
Sawant backers are now calling on the Recall Campaign to turn the signatures in by August 3, rather than “punting the recall question to a winter special election, where there is 25% less voter turnout on average.”
The campaigns continue to trade barbs… from accusations of campaign sign theft…
At a rally and media event Tuesday, the Kshama Solidarity campaign accused the recall backers of voter suppression in the latest twists and turns of the well funded, and sometimes heated political battle.
“The phrase ‘voter suppression in Seattle’ likely sounds strange to many of you,” Sawant in a statement read by Solidarity Campaign organizer Kailyn Nicholson at the event. “We are used to voter suppression being something done by wealthy Republicans in other states far away, not in a liberal city like Seattle. Yet that is exactly what the Recall Sawant campaign is attempting to do,’ the statement read.
To gotcha videos of campaign leaders
CHS reported earlier this month on the Kshama Solidarity campaign’s gambit to turn the tables and begin collecting signatures to force the recall vote it had been fighting. The move came after Recall Sawant announced the signature collecting effort was moving into its final stage for a push to put the recall vote on the November General Election ballot with around 9,000 of the needed 10,739 signatures collected.
But Bridger and the recall campaign said this week they’ll need to collect even more signatures than originally thought.
“According to the current validation rate with the county, we need a minimum of 48% more signatures collected than the actual number required to hopefully qualify for the ballot,” Bridger said. “There’s a lot more work ahead of us to collect valid signatures.”
Bridger says Recall Sawant “have not completed the internal audit process of the Sawant Solidarity petitions” and that “so far,” many of the signatures turned in from his opponents “are unverifiable.”
By Recall Sawant’s math, they’ll need to collect nearly 16,000 signatures to have enough to qualify.
The Kshama Solidarity campaign says Recall Sawant is trying to change the game now that it has finished the job for them:
Three weeks ago, the Recall Sawant campaign announced that they had over 9,000 pre-verified signatures. Sawant’s statement continued, “Strangely, since they announced this number, and we announced our signature gathering efforts, they have made no further announcements of additional signatures. According to their pace up until that point, they should themselves have reached 12,000 signatures by now. With these signatures from us, that should make approximately 14,000 total.”
“Suddenly, now that the Solidarity Campaign has collected 2,000 signatures, the Recall Campaign is outlandishly moving the goalposts – by a country mile, no less,” the campaign’s statement on the situation reads.
Bridger and Recall Sawant, meanwhile, say the process is playing out exactly as it should.
“The Recall campaign will not be bullied by Sawant or her supporters,” Bridger said. “This recall was approved by the State Supreme Court for a reason, and will provide every District 3 voter the chance to remove Councilmember Sawant from office when it qualifies for the ballot.”
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Voting couldn’t be easier in this state. You get a booklet in the mail about a month ahead of an election telling you what is on the ballot, you get a ballot delivered to your home. To return it all you need to do is put it back in your mailbox- you don’t even need a stamp.
The only reason for low turnout in any election here is apathy and if you lose because you couldn’t get people to fill in a bubble and seal an envelope, you deserve to lose.
Your speculation doesn’t match reality though. Obviously coming from a position of privilege where you have never had to worry about stable housing, childcare, working two jobs, little to no PTO, or any of the many other hardships faced by the less wealthy BIPOC and younger populations in this and other cities.
Despite your feelings on the ease of voting, the fact remains that turnout is lower for off elections, and skews whiter, wealthier, older, and more conservative than the general population and participants in November elections. Obviously the recall campaign knows this and, like republicans around the country, know that it is to their benefit if fewer non-white and young voters participate.
It is an intentional and purely political attempt to select a smaller and more favorable voter base. It is appalling, anti-democratic, and your feelings about voting are centered on your overly simplistic and idealistic view rather than reality.
And Sawant collecting signatures for the recall campaign is an “intentional and purely political attempt” to force it on the November ballot because it works better for them. Wake up. Both sides are playing the political game.
The *only* thing on your list that could affect your ability to vote easily is moving often….. if there is an issue that is important to you it is simply not a hardship to take less than 5 min to fill in a bubble, sign and seal the envelope and put it back in your mailbox. You don’t even need to do the whole ballot…… Stop making excuses.
So you’re saying that BIPOC, renters, and younger voters are just lazier than wealthy white homeowners? That’s your justification for intentional disenfranchisement? Well when you put it like that it doesn’t sound racist or classist at all.
No….YOU are saying that those voters must be lazier…. I’m saying that the only reason that voting is lower here during non-presidential elections is apathy.
What a crock of crap. Any legal voter (and many illegal voters) can freely vote in Seattle. Probably the most vote friendly town on earth. Sawant is obviously working a devious strategy to attempt to thwart a lawful recall vote. One more reason to get this criminal out of office. I’m not a citizen of Seattle.
Nikkita Oliver used this exact excuse to justify not voting. Somehow her single mother status and need to hold a job made it impossible to fill out a ballot and drop it in a box. The crushing weight of reality prevented her from this onerous task, one of so many in Seattle who are similarly oppressed.
Off-year elections skew lower because young people don’t have an attention span and forget to vote. No big name on the ballot. Presumably a “RECALL SAWANT” would be a bat-signal for her followers regardless of what year it was lit to go PROTECT OUR REVOLUTION AGAINST THE INVASION OF THE RULING CLASS.
I mean, are you suggesting this only is important in ‘on-year’ elections? That’s what the Sawant strategy of trying to force this vote now seems to be saying.
Personally, I think a recall is a bad idea. Run a better candidate than Egan Orion, who only lost 51-48, and see where the chips fall. A recall election is a distraction whether Sawant beats it or not.
This whole thing by Sawant is just so excruciatingly goofy. The Recall campaign has been begging for volunteers to collect signatures as fast as possible. They want very badly to make the November deadline. It will look weak, politically, if they can’t.
The reason they’re collecting far more signatures than needed is because Sawant’s lawyers — paid for with your taxpayer dollars — are going to challenge each and every signature. This is standard in political campaigns even without an opponent as litigious as Sawant.
So Sawant just completely made up this talking point about “the Recall campaign wants to miss the November deadline intentionally” and now that’s their main message, echoed in the headline to this blog post. Hey whatever happened to all those signs telling me I was a right-wing billionaire Trump supporter for signing the petition?
Also I can back up the theft of Recall signs. I’ve had a sign in my yard since this whole thing started and it usually doesn’t last a week. Fortunately I ordered a whole bunch, so whenever they steal one, I put a new one out. But it is just so childish that they go around stealing yard signs and then act like that’s proof that nobody supports the Recall. Meanwhile I’m sure if someone stole a pro-Sawant sign, her taxpayer-funded lawyers would be all over it!
The same thing happened with her signs by Orion supporters. Come on. This is a two way street.
It really isn’t. The Sawant campaign is notorious for systematically taking their opponents’ signs. They did it to Orion, and the Recall campaign has been complaining about it for months.
Maybe one person got fed up and decided to strike back. But there’s no coordinated effort by the Recall campaign to steal Sawant yard signs. A total false equivalence, typical of the Sawant campaign and its supporters.
I know someone who worked on Sawant’s reelection campaign who boasted about breaking into secure buildings to canvass, and proudly posted pictures of defaced Orion signs.
The philosophy of the Sawantist is that the ends justify the means, they are fighting OUR REVOLUTION and thus anything they do is OK, up to and including break the law. They have a rats nest of illogic and deflection and ad hominem ready to attack anyone with that dares question them in person too. And woe to anybody that dares question them under their IRL name. You better be ready to have your name smeared on social media, your workplace called, and whatever else they can think up to try to hurt you for having different views of government. when you are LARP’ing being an INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY, any and all tactics are justified.
Also, I want to add, like, obviously the Recall campaign isn’t going to add the Sawant-gathered signatures into their total. Like even the most hardcore Sawant supporter would admit that most of those signatures probably aren’t valid (whether that’s intentional by the Sawant campaign or not… you be the judge based on her past behavior).
The Recall campaign is deliberately omitting the fact that they already admitted that they had their signatures pre-verified by a consulting firm, so the purported need for 20k signatures is just patently ridiculous.
At the end of the day they know that lower voter turnout far outweighs the political costs of getting called out on voter suppression. It’s the same calculus employed by Texan republicans right now.
By the same token the fact that Sawant won her office in an odd numbered year, which usually has turn out than even numbered years when federal offices are on the ballot, must mean she endorses voter suppression as well. I have never heard her make a plea to move council elections to coincide with federal seats.
As CD neighbor stated there is no suppression here. Everyone gets a ballot with a prepaid envelope. You only need to fill in a bubble and mail it back. If Sawant is as beloved as she says she is there should be no problem rallying her supporters. These claims of suppression and right wing conspiracies highlight how desperate she is and how few actual accomplishments she actually has to make her case to the voters.
Source?
It will be really funny when Sawant wins again and all this out of town republican support crumbles like a house of cards. Go Sawant!
I think Sawant’s increasingly desperate tone (and that of her positively insufferable tabling staff) points to something else, Jansen. Not exactly the actions of a confident campaign.
That’s why Recall campaign is flipping out currently. Suuuuure. (Ross_saying_Sure.gif)
Nobody on the Recall campaign is flipping out. Anytime we hear anything from this race it’s always some absurd, panicked statement by Sawant.
Last week she was freaking out because the Recall campaign flew a “Recall Sawant” banner behind a plane for a few hours.
Most of her money comes from out of town. This is well documented.
Numerous comments over the past few months have stated the truth: that most of Sawant’s money comes from out-of-state socialists, and most of the Recall campaign money comes from Seattle and D3, where there are very few Republicans. I’m sure you know this, Jansen, so please stop lying.
Right on. As a D3 progressive who donated over a grand to Bernie in the primaries and am no fan of Biden, Pelosi, etc., I fully support progressive candidates but am so sick and tired of this Che Guevara cosplaying joke and voted for Orion previously and voted for the recall. I also don’t think the recall is the best approach as it makes her stronger if it fails, but there is no way I was not going to vote for it.
“out of town republican support” voted for Egan Orion 48%, while your Socialist Alternative funded play-actor got 51% of the vote. I would perhaps curb your proclamations about her big support in D3. Half of D3 wants her gone. And I doubt any of us have changed our minds since the last election.
More funding for Sawant comes from outside Seattle than funding for the recall. Facts.
Political campaigns are allowed to shift their strategy based on best outcomes. If your opponent suddenly joined your team, wouldn’t you need to re-strategize your game? Crunch the numbers, listen to your opponents, pull public data, pivot (like Covid is at your heels!) and make decisions based on facts, not whims. The Recall Campaign doesn’t need to “put up or shut up”; they only need to represent District 3, unlike some people who wont shut up already.
In the video, Bridger comes off as calm and willing to have a discussion. The Sawantists’ accusations of voter suppression and their attempt to tie him to Trump both seem like a bit of a reach. Instead, their tactic should be to talk up THEIR candidate. Instead of getting into the weeds about signatures with a guy who isn’t even on the ballot, get YOUR candidate out on the street and make the case why she shouldn’t be recalled.
I gathered signatures with Henry Bridger a little while ago, the poor guy really has the worst job earth. The Sawant people basically track him everywhere and constantly try to engage him in bad-faith “just asking questions” discussions, which he has to indulge, and they turn into these hours-long concern troll festivals. They’re constantly filming him to try to see if he’ll lose his temper or slip up in the face of their relentless antagonizing.
It was just so obnoxious and childish by the Sawant people, I wish one of our local news agencies would also follow him around so people around D3 can see what the Sawant campaign tactics are like in person. But the Sawantists are smart enough that they would clear out if a news org tried to catch them doing this.
Sawant brings out the worst in people. I’ve seen it. Her whole brand is antagonistic gotcha politics, and little else.
I am bemused that Sawant is trying to take over the Recall campaign and shift the narrative. It is her right but also the right of others to react negatively and skeptically. The more I think about it the more I think they would do well to totally ignore her. It is not their job to do her bidding. They can collect signatures on their own terms, as long as they wish, and establish the accuracy on their own.
I would certainly be highly hesitant to trust anything the Sawant camp were to do and the integrity of their signatures. This is politics and the job is to win, not to placate the haters who are not going to vote for the recall in any event. Whatever tactic is most likely to lead to a successful Recall vote is the task for the recall campaign. And if that happens to include missing the general election in favor of a special election, so be it. There is no moral entitlement to one over the other. Remember that a Recall means that she loses her seat and the council chooses a successor for the duration of her term. So the benefits of winning may exceed the benefits of a few more months of her successor. Acquiesing to Sawant or even acknowledging her counter campaign is a distraction and to be sure, playing along would not end the conflict, but more likely would bring forth a new grievance to allow her hostility to continue to have an outlet.
I don’t like some of the things Sawant has done. However this attempt to remove a two term councilperson is just another attempt by money people to silence a liberal voice. it didn’t work with Orion. Hopefully it won’t work here. We need a voice against the capitalist conformity of the wealthy of our community.
Sawant is not a “liberal voice.” She is a far-left, marxist voice, and a very loud one at that.
For heaven’s sake, she’s not entitled to the seat. She committed a bunch of crimes while in office, using the power of that office. The only means of holding her accountable is a recall election. If we aren’t allowed to recall officials when they commit crimes, then they can just do whatever they want with no consequences?
Where do you think you live, dennis? Can you point me to this right-wing shadowy cabal in King County, and especially in District 3?
Dennis is unaware that half of D3 didn’t vote for Sawant, apparently.
Do not conflate not liking the behavior of a candidate (regardless of their tenure) with holding a candidate accountable. They are very different things. I am a resident of D3, a “liberal voice” and by no means in the group of “money people.” I voted for Sawant… twice… now I’ve signed the petition and donated to the recall multiple times. I want to see a “liberal voice” on the council, but I’d prefer that voice not to be controlled by a national socialist organization. Since I am not overly fond of elected officials engaging in criminal behavior, a solid ethical core would also be nice.
Orion was and is a quality community volunteer on actual issues that matter to people inside of D3. He got blindsided by the Amazon money, and unfortunately didn’t have good enough sense to angrily refuse it. All that money got him was one run of ads on local TV – and a talking point Sawant used against him.
Orion continue to do volunteer work inside D3, like the quality human being he is, quietly making a difference in peoples’ lives.
Meanwhile Sawant continues to be a verbal bomb-thrower and source of loud noise but little else, as she has parlayed the brand of being “Seattle’s Socialist Councilwoman” into an international brand. She does absolutely nothing for D3, instead she promotes her image worldwide on behalf of The Socialist Alternative. It’s Performance Artist Socialism for out of area money. It’s a scam. That far too many fall for.
Sawant should be concerned that her crowds of supporters appear much smaller than ever, and days before the end of the eviction moratorium, more will learn the only person whose back she has is her own.
I’m a liberal forced moderate because of this Sawant nonsense. Let’s recall her and get a new person in that isn’t wasting tax dollars and actually gets things done for the city of Seattle.
Yep, she’s liberal in the sense that the USSR was liberal.
You haven’t been forced moderate… you’ve just had moderate redefined around you…. Suddenly anyone who doesn’t agree with the further left ideologies you can find (Marxism/Trotskyism) aside from total anarchy is being called a conservative…. Funny anywhere else, well maybe not Portland, you’re still so liberal it’s a surprise to people that you don’t bleed blue.